This novel is broken into four sections. The first one is a major hurdle to get over, but if you can get past it, you'll be just fine...
Benjy's POV is a little scattered to begin with, and there are also time shifts that complicate matters. It's not apparent what Benjy is witnessing at all times...and his trauma is only directly named later on. Then, there is Quentin's section. Here, I started to make connections and I was also familiar with the character of Quentin (having read about Quentin in Absalom, Absalom! I think this second section is most representative of Faulkner's style. Quentin's POV has a grace and poetic sense about it. The third section, with Jason, was less satisfactory. I didn't care about his point of view (in fact, I didn't care for his character) and I wanted to know more about what happened to Caddy. I also wanted to know more about what happened to Jason's niece (also named Quentin...which is more than a might confusing). Although Jason's POV is probably the most straight-forward of the narratives, it is less satisfactory because he is so unsavory. Lastly, we have the fourth section which ties things neatly together and ends with a poignant sermon from an Easter Sunday Church service. This section dispenses with the first person points of view entirely.
If you have access to it, I heartily recommend reading the criticism of this novel by Jean-Paul Sartre (On The Sound and the Fury: Time in the Work of Faulkner). This really informed my reading of the novel and helps to draw attention to details like Quentin's broken watch in section two.
Just as with the old Greek legends...like the curse of the House of Atreus...the Compson family is doomed. They can never escape the chains of time. To paraphrase Faulkner, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." (Requiem for a Nun, 1951).
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2 comments:
Why'd Faulkner open the book with Benjy? He must have known he'd confuse a lot of people, and of course he's not just"making people think."
Ulysses and The Waves had been published. I've heard that Faulkner had read them, and it sure sounds reasonable, given this text. Can anyone confirm that?
How did you read Fury differently for Absolom!?
How willing were you to assume that Quentin was the same Quentin. I mean, imagine Faulkner writing the same character several years apart. Can he really conceive of the character in exactly the same way/
The first time I ran across this was with Garcia Marquez, actually, but at the time it played with my notions of a book as a sort of discrete, priviledged reality.
The big trick with Fury is to make sure you have the '51 edition. They're around in used bookstores. Modern versions don't reprint the Appendix, which was originally published with the novel. In the Appendix, Faulkner is kind enough to simply write the narrative in the semi-omnicient 3rd person in chronological order.
It helps to read that first, then start the "actual" book.
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